Jedediah Earl Diamond

Jedediah Earl Diamond
June 20, 1979 Ð
September 27, 2005
Jedediah Earl Diamond, known affectionately by his family as "Ralph," died on September 27, 2005. Born in Payson, Utah, to John Milton Diamond and Martha Johnson Elliott, Ralph passed away peacefully at his mother and step-fatherÕs home in St. Anthony, Idaho. Jed attended Provo high, I.S.U and U.I. preferring to explore himself rather than a degree.
A memorial service will be held at Martha and Kenn ElliottÕs home in St. Anthony, Idaho, 2266 East 600 North.
Jed was a mountain man, an explorer, and a wanderer. He loved the freedom he found in nature and spent much of his time working in and traveling to U.S. National Parks, including Denali, Teton, Glacier, Zion and Yellowstone. The owner of the quintessential "Idaho truck," one never knew when his 25 year-old Bronco, afflicted with four different-colored doors and mis-matched tires, would roar into the driveway and he would step out, laundry bag in hand.
Jed never bowed to the limits of his body. To spite the steel rod in his back, he stood for hours in kitchens as a cook. In answer to his seizures, Jed often camped and traveled alone. He bore the indignities inflicted by chronic pain, epilepsy, and medicine with an uncommon grace and willpower, insisting on his independence and freedom. In a different century, Jed would have been a cowboy, a gold miner, a land prospector, an exploring party scout, a homesteader: the man who with the gorgeous, wavy red hair perhaps met just once around the campfire, but never forgotten by those who encountered him.
JedÕs path was never an easy one, as it was usually the one less taken. Instead of striving for gold, Jed looked for honesty and authenticity; rather than seeking the rewards and certificates bestowed by society, he derived strength from mountain peaks and the sound of wind in the high pines. As we move through this lifetime without our Ralph, we must learn to stop and look around at the world and its wonders: in this way we shall keep our son, our little brother, our nephew, our grandson and our friend, forever alive in our hearts and minds.
Your courage and passage through this terrestrial world does not and will not go unmarked nor unremarked, Jed. In the words of Chief Seattle: "The dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds."
Jed is survived by his parents and step-parents: Kenneth and Martha Elliott of St. Anthony, Idaho and John Milton and Cynthia Diamond of Magna, Utah, and his siblings: Jennifer Diamond, John Hills Diamond, Joshua Curtis Diamond, Joel Milton Diamond, and Eliza Jayne Ohran.